Man Of Moon

Man Of Moon

Ever since my good friend Jamie plugged their song The Road, I’ve been listening to Scottish indie rock duo Man of Moon. In the couple of year since, Chris Bainbridge and Mikey Reid have steadily grown into a force to be reckoned with. During their European tour with Django Django, we met up in Utrecht and recorded Sign and a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s World Turning in the former Epic Rainbow Unicorn Studio.

Chris tells me a bit about their history. ‘I grew up in Musselburgh, a wee fishing town just outside Edinburgh, Mikey grew up in the city. We both met at college and started jamming and really enjoyed the way each other played. We showed each other bands we listened to and introduced each other to new music. The sound has moved in different ways over the years but we still have aspects of early stuff we wrote.’

Considering Man of Moon’s sound and catalogue, Fleetwood Mac weren’t the first influence I’d thought of. We have a friend of Chris to thank for this captivating cover, it turns out: ‘I’d heard this song years ago and loved it, but a few weeks before the session my mate played it in his car and got it stuck in my head. Got such a groove. Fleetwood Mac are masters of riffs and harmonies.’

Fill up the iPod

His mum and dad were both primary school teachers and both very into music. ‘They played a lot of Beach Boys, Mamas and Papas, Billie Holliday and Queen. My big sisters are also heavy into music and showed me lots of 90’s hip hop, grunge and rock at a young age. I started really getting into music at around eight or nine. My big cousin has always been the one to show new bands that he had discovered. So every time I would go to visit him he would fill up my iPod with loads of new albums to listen to.’

‘I love the 90’s grunge and trip hop sounds, and most of the Radiohead albums. Jeff Buckley’s work has a huge influence on me and the German Krautrock scene also. I would say the main bands that influenced me growing up were Nirvana, Massive Attack, Jagwar Ma, Pond, Mogwai and loads of others but I could be here all day naming more bands, haha.’

Inspiration

‘I get very inspired by visuals, such as cinematic wee videos or photographs. I’m a huge fan of writing on the guitar on my own whilst smoking joints, as it helps me to get locked in and really work on the riff and song.’

If you’re in Amsterdam on Wednesday May 15th, make sure to catch Man of Moon live at Cinetol.

Photos

Man of Moon
The Influences logo

Originals

World Turning (Fleetwood Mac)
Spotify | iTunes | YouTube

Man Of Moon

Location
Epic Rainbow Unicorn Studio
Utrecht, The Netherlands

Credits
Filmed & edited by Matthijs van der Ven.
Audio recorded & mixed by Matthijs van der Ven.

Thanks
Simon Akkermans
Jamie Webster